2004-01-30 - 10:48 a.m.

Yikes. I got nailed by an extreme case of insomnia last night. It's undeniable that my sleep has suddenly gotten irregular since I started drinking coffee at home. It's the third night in a row, but this time I was up until 5:30.

I learned something this time. I had a hunch that it doesn't actually matter how much caffeine is in my system, or when it was ingested, unlike I had long believed. I used to think that if I drank coffee in the morning my sleep that night wouldn't be affected. I often remember wondering why I was laying awake after midnight and dismissing the coffee I'd had 14 hours before as "too far in the past". Last night I had to admit that it must be the coffee I had at 9am that was keeping up me up at 2am. I tried a little experiment... I really wanted a cup of coffee (third night in a row) so I figured what the heck, I'll have some.

I made a cup, at 2:30am, and sat and read my book for a while. Then I made some toast and another cup of coffee. As I suspected, I was still quite sleepy just a few hours later, just about the same time I would have fallen asleep anyway by my best estimate.

It's quite a significant finding. Going back less than a year in the past, when I started drinking decaf coffee at my parent's place, I see that my sleep was getting messed up from that as well. It doesn't matter if it's only a few % of the caffeine content of regular coffee, especially since I like my coffee very strong and often had 2 cups of decaf in the evening.

I still don't know all that much about these effect, like am I super sensitive to caffeine, or is it just that I have such a hard time getting sleep already that a tiny influence can throw me off? I can say with certainty that I know the feeling I have when caffeine is keeping me awake. There is a certain dull tension in my brain and body, a feeling of not quite being able to completely relax my muscles without conscious effort. I'm 28 and have been drinking coffee for, oh.. 12 years now so I'm amazed it's taken me this long to figure all this out. Oh well, at least now I know.

As far as today goes, I need to give myself enough time at Saara's to set up the commodore (reminds me, I forgot to hook up the DVD thing. Maybe Mike's been by lately..?) and play some Space Taxi with Alex and Jake :)

It's weird how that works, that Alex is the one who demands my time, at least in the sense of making prior plans, but when we actually start spending time together, Jake is always there of course. Sometimes I feel bad that the focus seems to be always on Alex, like I am going there to bring Alex to the bus, and Alex and I are going to play diablo, etc. Still, I know that Jake is satisfied because I always make it clear that he is to be included in anything we do if he wants.

To completely change subjects, the people who live in this house are weird. Darcy, the guy next door, doesn't appear to sleep and showers only a few times a month. There does seem to be a general quiet period from about 6am-10am so maybe he just prefers to sleep then. It just seems that any time of the day is fair game for me to hear him noisily make the journey out his door and into the shared bathroom 3 times in the space of 15 minutes. Something's up and it's not so much that I really care as that my mind is too aware of the goings on for me not to think about it. I'd rather just not be aware of his existence. (I've tried to make friends, but he's among the most introverted people I've ever encountered)

The people downstairs from me are also night-owls. If anything, they can be depended on to be awake even more that Darcy. The worse thing about them though is that it seems they are constantly having sex. I'm really glad that they are happy and have a happy sex life but it escapes me how normal human beings can have 3 hour moanathons from 12am-3am, 8am-11am and 3pm-6pm all in the same day. Maybe they pop wake-up and viagra combo pills?

Annnnnnyway, time to get showered and eat so I can head over to Saara's...

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